Claire Messud Quotes

You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

I love writing books - I really do. If I could just quit everything and work on a book every day, I would love that most.

If I did anything 'next', I would do writing.

But, somewhere in there, I did have the thought that this really fits in with my thinking about what I wanted to do; with what has to be done by a writer in order to stay alive as a writer.

As a writer, you have to first of all write what you want to. Listen to advice, by all means, but don't get bogged down in it.

So, how to stay inside the world of entertainment without actually getting another job? I felt the only logical answer was to become a novelist. So I wrote the first book - driven by some very real feelings of desperation - and it worked.

But I think there are a set of experiences that turn a potential writer into a working writer, and then there are places in your life were you start to recognize what you want to do.

If somebody gave you several thousand dollars and nothin' to do but write, would you be a writer then? Would you tell your stories, your family's stories, then?

I started writing to please myself, a story I would like to read, and that is still true.

I don't usually think of my writing as a 'challenge' because I enjoy the process so much. I suppose that's what's helped me to avoid 'writer's block' all these years.

I did a minor in creative writing in college, but I didn't start writing until I stayed at home with my own children.

I didn't know I was gonna be a writer when I started out.

I like to write and that's why I write. I don't think about how much the book will sell.

My experience of fiction was, in the beginning, so exploratory. I wasn't sitting down to a desk at Yaddo with a month, thinking I have to have a draft of a novel.

When I went to college I took a creative writing class and decided in a week to be a writer.

There's nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, 'Well, okay, I'm going to do something of high artistic worth.'

And there are people who want to be writers because they love to write. And they care.

I've always been a writer.

I knew that I wanted to be a writer even before I knew exactly what being a writer entailed.

I throw everything I have into whatever story I'm writing - and so there's something immensely gratifying about finishing one piece and then starting fresh with a new setting, time period and cast of characters, getting to see the world through a completely different lens each time.

I always knew I wanted to be a writer.

I didn't know anything about writers. It never occurred to me they were regular people and that I could grow up to become one, even though I loved to make up stories inside my head.

I think one of the keys to better writing is releasing all of your ideas and to not be afraid. Dream big. This could be the greatest novel in the world you know.

Write a book you'd like to read. If you wouldn't read it, why would anybody else? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book's ready.

I didn't do any writing seriously until I was in my mid-twenties. But I've never really thought of myself as doing anything else. I've always wanted to write.